The World Bank has funded land reform, land administration, and land management projects in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region since the early 1990s. The region comprises the 15 countries of the former Soviet Union, the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and Turkey. Both the privatization of land and property assets and their efficient management and mobilization in the credit markets have been at the center of the transitional reforms to date.

Although many African countries have recently adopted highly innovative and pro-poor land laws, lack of implementation thwarts their potentially far-reaching impact on productivity, poverty reduction, and governance. We use a representative household survey from Ethiopia where, over a short period, certificates to more than 20 million plots were issued to describe the certification process, explore its incidence and preliminary impact, and quantify the costs.

The six case studies in this book were prepared as background studies for a synthesis report on land administration and reform in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Collectively they cover two main areas of land governance: reforms in redistributing agricultural land; and reforms in land administration. The problems in land ownership inequality and poor land administration are defined and the question of why reforms are necessary is addressed. The first two case studies focus on reforms in redistributing agricultural land in Malawi and South Africa.

This article reviews recent research on contemporary transformations of global land governance. It shows how changes in global governance have facilitated and responded to radical revalorizations of land, together driving the intensified competition and struggles over land observed in many other contributions to this special issue. The rules in place to govern land use are shifting from ‘territorial’ toward ‘flow-centered’ arrangements, the latter referring to governance that targets particular flows of resources or goods, such as certification of agricultural or wood products.

A landscape simulation was designed and tested in Viengkham, a mountainous district in the north of Lao PDR. This social learning process was introduced by researchers affiliated with national research institutions to improve land use planning practices and increase the ownership of local people in the planning process. Twelve members of the village land management committees participated in the role play called PLUP Fiction, which is part of a stepwise process of participatory land use planning (PLUP).